The Labor enquirer., 1887-11-19

Miss Mccarthy BY singing an
original hymn composed expressly
for the sad occasion. 1t is given
entire:
DiteeF end ~ y ne strain sing.
And ~ hooEt = nllsd with sorrow,
roe Whot eAA ~ dismal fnturs bring
Dut dnsk ~ dFsasy morrow.
Flve of ~ bravest evsS born
Have bsea slain spite ell sur pleading.
And the thinking men of The nation mourn,
And thsis hsaFss ase torn and bleeding.
Dsad ars shs heroes who fousht for hight,
And thstY wives and their children ere
MS wssplnc
For thsm ~ : dark and bitter night.
For their loved ones ars silently sleeping,
Brave aad tsas, for The poor they fought,
vor the oauso q humanity 1lled thsm,
And The brotherhood of man they taught,
And for this they have foully killed them.
NobIy they iood whom they heard their fAts;
Not born In such brave men TO fAltsr,
Bat they stood like the olden martyrs great,
And IKE them they were paid with { halter;
Hanged b. IN ignofant peoples howl.
For the rich and the prejudiced tried them.
:Twas dAstardIy crime; twas murder foul
Yet In dying these brave men dened them.
I. D. N. Leahy said: llN
I'VE have assembled here to do
honor in our humble way to the
comrades who yielded up their
lives in Chicago. Whatever may
be said about them no one can
say that their motives were selfish.
If they had been selfish they could
have been we'll off in this worlds
goods. But those men were not
of that type. They were of a
grander and nobler type, and in
their unsel6sh efforts for human
ity lost sight of that maxim,
Every man for himself and the
devil take the hindmost.'
"Those noble-hearted men had
been through the coal mines of
Pennsylvania where they saw their
fellow-men working for 65 cents
per day, shut out from Gods sun,
doomed to almost eternal dark
ness. They saw those men forced
to place their wives by their sides
in the mines in order to keep the
wolf from the door; they saw fur
ther that it was necessary to bring
the child not over eight years old
in to assist the father and mother
to earn a bare subsistence. They
then visited the homes of those
poor miners and found little chill
dren of ages ranging from m one to
six years playing upon the dirt
floor in rags and squalor. They
Visited those mines in time of
strike caused by the attempt Of
the employer to reduce the already
small and starvation wages; they
saw there those poor slaves who
had worked for their masters for
years in poverty and rags evicted
from their miserable cabins and
huddling together upon the hard
frozen ground.
They had seen those same lit
tie girls at the tender age of thir-
teen driven to prostitution. the
victims of the class that had lived
upon their earnings.
"They have seen the poor labor
ers working from early morn till
late at night for 90 cents per day,
having to support out of that his
wife and little ones.
"They sawall this and wondered
if this was the fate of all mankind.
They visited the homes of the
owners of the coal mines and fac
tories, and what did they find?
Small dugouts. dirt floor. ragged,
starving children and the sallow,
hollow-eyed wife that they found
at the home of the miner and poor
little factory girlf No. Instead.
they saw all that wealth could pro-
cure.
"Then those noble minds revert
back to the misery and want they
saw in the homes of the toiler and
wonder how this can be, that the
ones who produce the fine homes.
carpets and silks are entirely des-
titute of these productions.
"They see the causes which bring
this about and they resolve to tell
q Il